


Two Hours

by Miso



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
Genre: Arguing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Panic Attacks, can you tell im a sucker for h/c with this ship, stone does some badass agent shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23680381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miso/pseuds/Miso
Summary: Stone and Robotnik have a fight. Stone takes a walk to clear his head. Robotnik doesn't take that well.
Relationships: Dr. Eggman | Dr. Robotnik/Agent Stone
Comments: 8
Kudos: 151





	Two Hours

**Author's Note:**

> stobotnik discord: what if we did a sad  
> me: i got you, fam
> 
> for real tho i am such a sucker for this ship and some good old fashioned hurt/comfort. im projecting on robotnik and i refuse to apologize for it

"You are going to be the goddamned death of me."

"I was doing a perfectly adequate job before you burst in."

"Ivo, they tried to shoot you!"

It always seemed to go like this. Robotnik would be given some kind of assignment, he'd run in headlong instead of letting his Badniks do their thing (for glory? For sport? For shits and giggles? Stone had no clue), and he'd get himself into trouble that required Stone's intervention. Clearing out a cult somewhere in the Tennessee wilderness sounded like a simple, clean-cut job. Let the robots fire a few lasers and bullets. They would clean up after themselves, and whatever they couldn't get, nature would take care of for them.

But no. No, Ivo had to go in there himself, and nearly get himself shot by some creepy redneck racists. Stone never liked having to save his partner's ass from his own stupidity. Forced to hang back in the mobile lab while Ivo went into the woods, he'd kept a close eye in the vitals being relayed back to him by Ivo's smart watch. An uptick in his heart rate and respiration; nothing Stone was too worried about, followed by the distant sound of gunfire and much larger jumps in his vital signs. He was on his feet and racing towards the noise before he fully understood what was going on, practically forcing his way past Robotnik's tight security measures.

Military training had done him well. The Doctor was running out of breath and looked pale when Stone reached him, shouted for him to get behind him, and got between the cultists and the scientist.

Leveling his gun at the leader's head, he let out a growly warning that if they wanted to live, they wouldn't take another step.

Only when a bullet was firmly lodged in the leader's shoulder did they listen. Stone didn't like to kill unless he had to. His hands were bloodied, but... it never felt right. "You'll stay put until a government operative arrives to collect you," he had growled as he tapped and swiped on his watch. "You're under arrest."

"The hell for?!"

"Conspiracy to commit domestic terrorism." Stone relished the look of shock on the faces of the two bulky men helping the smaller, frail head of the group to his feet. They were clearly the brawn where he was the brains. "Dale Gerhardt, is it?" he asked the older man. "Been Googling how to build bombs and directions to various tourist destinations in the Southern US. Not hard to figure out what you were up to."

An unmarked black car arrived after less than ten minutes, and took the three cultists into custody. One thing Stone did have to hand to the government was that, with things like this, they were efficient and quiet. No dilly-dallying and red tape required. Wordlessly, Stone holstered his gun and scooped a still out-of-breath Robotnik up into his arms to carry him back to the mobile lab.

Where they found themselves promptly getting in an argument as the driverless AI of the truck drove them towards Gatlinburg, where they were to spend the night.

"You can't just go running into these situations like that!"

"The hell I can't, Stone! Who do you think you are, raising your voice to me?!"

"I think I'm your _concerned boyfriend_ who doesn't want to see you get killed!" Stone grabbed Ivo's shoulders, gently but firmly. "Ivo, I would never forgive myself if anything happened to you. Why didn't you just stay in the truck and send the robots? You wouldn't have been a target!"

"We wouldn't have brought them in alive, either."

"Fuck that! I'm more worried about keeping you alive!" Stone's expression was full of simultaneous anger and worry, and he squeezed Robotnik's shoulders. "Please, Ivo, just listen to me for _two seconds_ -"

"I'm more than capable of taking care of myself!" the Doctor snapped, interrupting his ever-loyal lackey. "I do NOT need you verbally assaulting me for a plan going slightly awry, Agent Stone, and I do not need a babysitter!"

"Clearly you do, since you almost got yourself killed, and probably would have had I not shown up to save your ass!"

"I am _never_ wrong! I have never, once, in my life, been wrong, and I calculated a ninety-five-point-seven percent probability that I would survive the encounter!"

"And I think I stumbled into the probability that you wouldn't! For fuck's sake, Doctor, I'm not trying to baby you, I'm worried about you!"

"There's no sense in worrying about me, Agent," Robotnik snapped, dismissing Stone with a wave of his hand. "Now, leave me alone. I have work that needs done."

Stone sputtered for a minute before groaning in frustration and spinning on his heel, stalking out of the lab and into their living quarters. Not long after, the truck announced that they had arrived in their destination. Without a word to Robotnik, Stone grabbed his jacket, cell phone, and wallet, and exited the truck. He needed a walk. Just a little bit to clear his head. He wouldn't be gone long.

At least, he didn't think he would be gone long. Gatlinburg was a charming town, as it turned out. Stone took a little longer than he had previously planned. He took a stroll through a bit of green space, stopped to listen to a fellow play some bluegrass riffs on his acoustic guitar (and toss a tenner into his tip jar), and found himself in a delightful little bar with the best craft beer he had tasted in quite some time. All the while, he pointedly ignored his violently buzzing phone in his pocket. Of course Ivo was texting and calling him non-stop. He always did when Stone wasn't in immediate sight or earshot. He would be fine on his own for a while. He was a grown man, after all, and there was 'no sense in worrying about him'. He was fine.

Almost two hours later, Stone returned to the truck, pleasantly buzzed (but not drunk, no, he had some restraint) on craft beer and bar appetizers bought by the good, red-blooded patriots who could "tell he was a soldier" (not for a while, but who was he to turn down free pretzels and beer cheese?). As he waited for the security system to analyze his thumb print, he glanced down at his phone.

Thirty-seven missed calls and forty texts from Robotnik. _Oh. Shit._ The most recent, visible text was tough to read through accidentally-typed double letters and misspellings (and the mild haze of alcohol), but Stone eventually made it out.

 _"imm soryr please donnt leave mme"_. Ivo's impeccable grammar and spelling weren't present. As he passed the first security doors and waited for the cornea scan to complete to grant him access to the interior of the truck, he opened the text chain and began reading them. They started off normal and slowly, over time, deteriorated.

_"Where in the hell did you run off to?"_

_"Whatever you're doing had better be important."_

Nothing notable for a few texts.

_"Aban, this isn't funny."_

_"Come home."_

_"Why aren't you picking up your phone?"_

Similar texts for a while, before they devolved into a chain of _"I'm sorry."_ in increasingly-poor grammar, capitalization, and spelling, interspersed with pleas for Stone not to leave him, repeated declarations of Robotnik's love for him. One in particular, though, hit him like a freight train.

 _"I'm so sorry Aban I'm so sorry I love you so much please come back I'll die without you I know I will just please come home"_ with no punctuation, the spelling mistakes likely fixed by autocorrect, or sent via text-to-speech. Finally, finally, the door wooshed open, and Stone took a step into their living quarters.

"... Jesus."

The living area looked like a tornado had torn through it. Photographs and books were strewn across the floor, the cushions on the loveseat taken off the frame and tossed haphazardly across the room, plants knocked over, an overturned cup of coffee soaking the table (thank god it was just cheap, fake wood that would be easy to replace). "Ivo?" Stone called, brow furrowed as he picked his way through the mess. "Ivo, babe, I'm home! I'm sorry I was gone so long!" No sign of him in the kitchenette (largely untouched, though he did notice an empty bowl and spoon sitting in the sink with what appeared to be ice cream residue on them), nor the bathroom (towels ripped from the hangers and the shower curtain hanging by one hook to the bar).

The bedroom didn't yield any clues either, outside of the blankets being removed from their bed and both pillows being missing. There was nowhere for him to hide in here. Stone left the bedroom, rubbing his temples and feeling worry starting to boil in his gut. What if Ivo had gone and done something stupid while he was gone? If anything had happened to him, and Stone had just ignored the texts the entire time...

The thought made him sick. He hadn't checked the lab yet.

He felt bile rising in his throat as he stepped into the lab, the silence overwhelming at first. Stone thought he was going to puke until he heard a sharp gasp, followed by shaky exhales punctuated with weak, hiccuping sobs. He could have passed out from relief, but instead, he tracked the sound to the prototype jet Robotnik had been building. He'd recently finished the cockpit, and Stone let out the breath he didn't realize he was holding when he spotted Ivo inside it.

He'd made himself a nest of blankets and pillows from their bed and the couch (so that was where the throw pillows had gone!). The Doctor lay curled in the fetal position in the cockpit of the prototype, hiccuping and gasping every so often, arms wrapped tight around a pillow. He was wearing a pair of Stone's flannel pajamas- they swallowed him alive- and had fitted the pillow with a button-down shirt that also belonged to Stone. Beside him, next to his head, was his phone; the earbuds present in his ears explained why he hadn't heard Stone calling for him, nor the confirmations and wooshes of the security system and the doors. Quietly tapping the screen, Stone's heart sank at what Ivo was listening to. Not a playlist, not a podcast, not even a YouTube video.

A voicemail. A voicemail from Stone, from about a week prior. He didn't recall what he'd said in it. Ivo whimpered and choked a little, reaching for his phone- evidently to move to the next one- and jumped when his fingers brushed Stone's.

The pair made eye contact after Ivo removed his earbuds. His eyes were red and puffy, and he shuddered when he exhaled. "... I'm home," Stone whispered, and he didn't get any further before Ivo crumbled.

The Doctor let out a loud sob and wrapped his arms around Stone's neck. In one smooth, steady motion, Stone had Robotnik clinging to him in a manner not unlike a baby sloth, his legs around his waist and arms around his neck, face buried against his shoulder. "I'm so sorry," Stone whispered as Robotnik wept into the fabric of his jacket. With some finagling, he grabbed the blankets from the cockpit of the jet, wrapping them around himself and Ivo with as little jostling of the sobbing scientist as possible. Silently, he managed to carry Robotnik out of the lab (with a little difficulty, of course, struggling with the thumb print security) and into their bedroom. He'd left the fitted sheet untouched, thankfully, and he was able to unceremoniously plunk Ivo in the middle of the mattress. "I'm gonna be right back," Stone murmured, "I'm just getting our pillows."

He couldn't ignore the desperate whine that followed him as he turned to leave. "It's okay. I'll be right back. Promise." He hurried as much as possible with the remaining blankets and their pillows, returning in record time. "Okay, okay, I'm back, see?"

The Doctor had already started crying again, though. Stone managed to get their pillows and the remaining blankets laid out, kick off his shoes, and sit down in bed, but only just; Robotnik was immediately in his arms, clinging to him, bawling into his chest. He couldn't make out most of the words. "I'm sorry," Stone murmured, stroking Ivo's hair and rocking him gently. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have left like that... for as long as I did... especially without telling you..." He smoothed a bit of hair back from Robotnik's forehead and gently kissed him there, feeling the Doctor's ungloved hands grasp desperately at his jacket. Slowly, the sobs quieted to soft, occasional hiccups, and the trembling hands that had been bunching his jacket in their palms relaxed a little.

"You okay?"

"Mmnh." Ivo pushed his face into Stone's neck, whimpering. "Thought you were gone..."

"I'm so sorry... I just needed to clear my head. I didn't mean to stay gone as long as I did... should've answered my phone."

"... Do you still love me?"

"Of course I do," Stone answered, a little surprised by the question. "Of course I do."

"M'kay..." The exhaustion was evident in Robotnik's hoarse voice. His body shuddered in Stone's arms, as the agent rubbed gentle circles on Ivo's back with his fingertips. "I... I'm so cold."

When Robotnik cried- a rare enough occasion to begin with- he always got cold immediately after. "I know, babe... here," Stone wrapped the blankets around him as Ivo's long fingers moved to play with the loose tie still around Stone's neck. He stroked the satin gently, following the pattern of diagonal stripes with his fingertips. Stone gently rubbed his shoulder to get his attention. "Better?"

"Better."

"Okay."

A pause.

"M'sorry."

"What for?"

"Yelling. Shouldn't have gotten mad at you... for being worried." He was able to talk a little bit better, if nothing else.

"I shouldn't have left without telling you where I was going, or not answered my phone."

"We were both being irrational." Ivo was struggling to keep his tired, red eyes open. "I... just want to sleep now, Stone."

"Alright. Sleep, then. I'll stay here."

Ivo seemed content with that response. He yawned, let his eyes close, and rested his head against Stone's chest.

"I love you."

"I love you, too, Doc."

Robotnik's breathing evened out, his tense muscles relaxed, and- inordinately quickly, especially for him- he fell asleep, out like a light in Stone's lap.

Stone ran his fingers through Ivo's hair. Then he paused.

"... I should have peed before letting him fall asleep."


End file.
